Batman Biography, History

Nama              : CHRISTIAN ADI NUGRAHA
NPM               : 10209968
Kelas              : 4EA15
Mata Kuliah   : Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Batman

History
A family outing to the cinema ended in tragedy for young Bruce Wayne. Walking homeward, Bruce, his father, Thomas, and mother, Martha, accidentally ventured into Gotham City's notorious "Crime Alley" and were accosted by a mugger. Not content merely to rob the wealthy family, the hoodlum - whose identity was "never determined" - shot Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne dead before fleeing into the darkness. As he knelt beside his parent's bodies, Bruce swore to avenge them. After the police arrived, Bruce was comforted by Dr. Leslie THompkins. Dr. Thompkins and Alfred Pennyworth helped arrange matters so that Gotham's Social Services would not take Bruce into care. In this way, both Dr. Thompkins and Alfred enabled Bruce to realize his dream of becoming a crusader against crime.

The Young Bruce Wayne

At age 14, Bruce embarked on a journey that took him to every continent as he sought to learn all the skills he would need to keep his vow. He studied criminology, forensics, and criminal psychology, and learned from manhunters and martial artists, mastering every fighting style. In time, Bruce forged himself into a living weapon to wage war on crime and injustice. On his return to Gotham, Bruce stalked street thugs as a plainclothes vigilante. Beaten by the very people he intended to protect, he barely survived his first night out. As he sat bleeding in his study at Wayne Manor Bruce knew that he had to first strike fear in the hearts of his foes. Just then, a bat crashed through the study window, giving Bruce the inspiration he needed.

Batman Begins

Establishing a secret headquarters in the caves beneath his mansion, Bruce became Batman, a Dark Knight to protect Gotham and its citizens from vice and villainy. Alfred Pennyworth remained his confidant, tending to injuries and offering sage advice - whether requested or not!

Batman became an urban legend, a cautionary tale that sent shivers through the city's underworld. This Caped Crusader found a friend in Captain James Gordon a Gotham cop who didn't approve of Batman's methods, but appreciated the results of his nightly crime fighting. Batman's Rogues Gallery grew to include a host of bizarre criminals, such as the Joker, Catwoman, Two-Face and the Penguin. As his enemies increased, help arrived in the form of another young boy left parentless by brutal crime.

Robin
As a member of the Flying Graysons acrobatic family, young Dick Grayson thrilled audiences nightly on the high wire beside his circus aerialist parents. But when gangster "Boss" Zucco sabotaged the high wire because the owner of Haly's Circus refused to offer up protection money, the elder Graysons paid with their lives. Billionaire Bruce Wayne was in the audience that night; however, it was Batman who visited the grieving Dick Grayson, offering the boy a chance at retribution by becoming Robin, the Dark Knight's squire in his personal war on crime. 

Dick Grayson

The first Robin [yes, there was more than one Robin, there have been 4 in fact, all in continuity] was carefully schooled by Batman, learning all the skillshe would need to bring "Boss" Zucco to justice. Before long, Dick was ready for action. Sewaring a solemn oath, he joined the Dark Knight's crusade as his most trusted partner, Robin the Boy Wonder.

After several years in service to the Dark Knight, Grayson - then leader of the Teen Titans - relinquished the mantle of Robin when Batman forced him to choose between his duties with the Titans and his promise to aid the Dark Knight. Adopting the identity of Nightwing, Dick continued to battle crime while remaining Batman's close ally. 

Jason Todd [robin #2]

Batman met juvenile delinquent and presumed orphan, Jason Todd, when the boy literally tried to steal the tires right off the Batmobile. With original partner Dick Grayson having given up the role of Robin, Batman decided to take Jason in and offer him both a home and a purpose. Jason began the same training regimen Grayson once undertook to become the Dark Knight's partner. However, Jason was a troubled soul who lacked maturity and was quick to anger. 

A Death in the Family

When Jason discovered clues that his long-lost mother was alive, he secretly traveled to Africa to find her. Tragically, the trail also led him straight into the clutches of the Joker, who savagely beat the second Boy Wonder within an inch of his life. The Clown Prince of Crime left Jason and his mother to die in a booby-trapped warehouse wired from floor to ceiling with high-explosive charges. Jason courageously tried to shield his mother from the brunt of the devastating blast. She survived the explosion just long enough to tell a grief-stricken Batman that his reckless young partner had died a hero.

Tim Drake [Robin #3]

Tim Drake was barely more than a toddler when he sat in the stands at Haly's Circus and watched the Flying Graysons fall to their doom. Tim was transfixed as the Dark Knight swooped down to comfort young Dick Grayson. The moment was burned into his memory. Years later, Tim saw news reports of an unhinged Batman becoming more and more violent following the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd. Using his detective skills, Tim deduced the secret identity of Batman and the first Boy Wonder, Dick Grayson. 

After revealing this knowledge to the original Dynamic Duo, Tim argued the need for a Robin to give the Dark Knight hope, especially when faced with a seemingly hopeless and unyielding war on crime. Though reluctant at first, Batman gave Tim the opportunity to prove that he was as good as his word. After months of grueling training, Tim Drake became the third Robin.

It is a job at which Tim excels, despite the constant struggle of balancing his crime-fighting life with the day-to-day battles of just being a teenager. A former member of the Young Justice, Tim presently belongs to the latest incarnation of the Teen Titans.

Stephanie Brown [Robin #4? for about 30 minutes]

Tim Drake met teen vigilante Stephanie Brown, the Spoiler, when she first attempted to thwart her father the Cluemaster's criminal schemes. Mutual attraction grew, and Tim began supplying Stephanie with official Bat-Equipment. Their love ended tragically when Stehphanie was killed in ation.

Batman's Uniform

Batman's [uniform] is bulletproof and fire resistant, featuring a weighted cape and a cowl outfitted with night-vision technology and communications arrays; utility belt contains an arsenal of crime-fighting gear, including various types of offensive Batarangs, de-cel jumplines and grapnels, micro-camera, smoke pellets, acetylene torch, gas mask, rebreather, and flexi-cuffs among other miniaturized non-lethal weapons. [Batman] employs a variety of detective gadgets, including micro-computers and crime scene analysis kits; maintains a fleet of high-tech and high-powered vehicles, chief among the Batmobile, Batcycle, Batboat, Batplane and Batcopter; supersophisticated Batcave headquarters houses training facilities, forensics laboratories, computer databases, and maintenance bays for all Bat-vehicles. 

Some of the more prominent storylines of The Batman

• The Origin of The Joker? the history of The Red Hood There are two stories, we will give you the current history of The Red Hood. The man who was to wear the Red Helmet and become the Red Hood was actually a former chemical technician for the Ace Chemical plant, who became a struggling stand-up comedian burdened with the thought of not being able to support his newly pregnant wife.

Jack, this poor sot's name, is approached by criminals who strong arm him into accepting the role of The Red Hood since they want to rob the Ace Chemical plant. Jack accepts [he had no choice], in order to make enough money to start a better life for his family. The day of the heist, Jack learns that his pregnant wife dies from a "freak accident", the reader is led to believe that it was done by the gang members ensuring that Jack stuck with deal.

Jack, failed comedian, failed husband to a murdered wife, reluctantly dons the helmet? becoming the new Red Hood. Red Hood had a large domed red helmet [of course] with one way mirror lenses [like Spider-Man] to see through and a red cape. Oh yes.. he also wore a tuxedo. Very dapper was the Red Hood. While attempting to rob a chemical plant, the plant's security men spot the robbers, shooting the other criminals dead, narrowly missing the Red Hood. Cornered on a catwalk by Batman the [now terrified] Red Hood dives into a chemical basin to make his escape and swims to freedom by way of a venting pipe. He only survived via a special breathing apparatus that was built into his helmet. However, the chemicals in the basin permanently disfigured the an under the hood, turning his hair green, his skin white and his lips red.

Upon discovering this, he went insane. What really crawled out of that chemical basin so many years ago was the worst criminal mind to walk the earth?. no not Lex Luthor, none other than they psychotic and maniacle Joker.

• Broken Bat - Bane will forever be remembered as the man who broke the Bat! More than three decades ago, Bane's father received a life sentence from the Satna Priscan government for his role in a failed revolution. He fled the country, but Santa Priscan law demanded that his son take his place. The child that would become Bane was raised inside Pena Duro prison (mostly in a pit called the Cavidad Oscuro). Bane killed dozens of inmates and engineered a jailbreak when experiments with the drug Venom gave him monstrous strength.

Winding up in Gotham City, Bane exhausted Batman by freeing all the villains from Arkham Asylum. He then crippled the Dark Knight by snapping his spine. Jean Paul Valley (Azrael) donned the Batman garb ? wile Bruce recuperated from his injuries. This interim Batman was more violent and unstable; Bruce returned to action as soon as his body had healed and he had regained his fighting spirit, with the help of ruthless martial-arts mistress Lady Shiva. Bruce took back the mantle of the Bat by force.

• The "Batman: Hush" storyline introduced Tommy Elliot, a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne's. As Hush, the bandaged villain, Elliot secretly orchestrates constant attacks on the Batman by manipulates many of the Batman's Rogues Gallery's villains. As the manipulations and orchestrations grow so does the sexual tension between Batman and Catwoman, to the point where they actually become romantically involved? to a certain degree. Ultimately, Batman's distrust in Catwoman ends the doomed relationship. Hush tricks Batman into believing that Jason Todd, the second Robin who was killed by the Joker, is actually alive. An angry Jason fights Batman but he is later revealed to be none other than Clayface. In a bizarre twist of writing, the DC creators decided to go ahead and let Jason Todd actually become alive, imagine that, but he arrives in the guise of ? the Red Hood.
• Remember The Red Hood? Well meet Red Hood 2! Wait, or is it Robin? ... Ahh Jeeze!

Sumber : http://www.superherostuff.com/biographies/batman_biography.html

The Noun Phrase

Nama                 : CHRISTIAN ADI NUGRAHA

NPM                   : 10209968

Kelas                 : 4EA15

Mata Kuliah   : Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

What is an article?

Basically, articles are either definite or indefinite. They combine to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun.

·         The definite article is the.

·         The indefinite article is a / an.

The indefinite article a or an:

The article a / an is used when we don't specify the things or people we are talking about:

·         I met a friend.

·         I work in a factory in New York.

·         I borrowed a pencil from a passenger sitting next to me.

The indefinite article a is used before a consonant sound:

·         a dog.

·         a pilot

·         a teacher.

·         a university

NOTE:
Although 'university' starts with the vowel 'u', it is not pronounced as such. It is pronounced as a consonant sound /ju:.niv3:.si.ti/

The indefinite article an is used before a vowel sound:

·         an engineer.

·         an elephant.

·         an athlete

The definite article the:

It's used when the speaker talks about a specific object that both the person speaking and the listener know.

·         The car over there is fast.

·         The president of the United States is giving a speech tonight.

When we speak of something or someone for the first time we use a or an, the next time we repeat that object we use the definite article the.

·         I live in a house. The house is quite old and has four bedrooms.

·         I ate in a Chinese restaurant. The restaurant was very good.

No article:

1. Do not use an article with countries, states, counties or provinces, lakes and mountains except when the country is a collection of states such as "The United States".

·         He lives in Washington near Mount Rainier.

·         They live in Northern British Columbia.

·         They climbed Mount Everest. 

2. we do not normally use an article with plurals and uncountable nouns to talk about things in general.:

·         He writes books.

·         She likes sweets.

·         Do you like jazz music?

·         She ate bread with butter in the morning. 

Countable and uncountable nouns

Using English articles with countable and uncountable nouns may be confusing.

The can be used with uncountable nouns, or the article can be dropped entirely as mentioned above.

1.      "The two countries reached the peace after a long disastrous war" (some specific peace treaty) or "The two countries reached peace after a long disastrous war" (any peace).

2.      "He drank the water" (some specific water- for example, the water his wife brought him from the kitchen) or "He drank water." (any water)

It is unusual to use a/an for uncountable nouns. You can't say "I'd like a milk"

a/an can be used only with countable nouns.

1.      I'd like a piece of cake.

2.      I lent him a book.

3.      I drank a cup of tea.

What are quantifiers?

A quantifier is a word or phrase which is used before a noun to indicate the amount or quantity:
'Some', 'many', 'a lot of' and 'a few' are examples of quantifiers.

Quantifiers can be used with both countable and uncountable nouns.

Examples:

There are some books on the desk
He's got only a few dollars.
How much money have you got?
There is a large quantity of fish in this river.
He's got more friends than his sister.

Examples of quantifiers

With Uncountable Nouns

·         much

·         a little/little/very little *

·         a bit (of)

·         a great deal of

·         a large amount of

·         a large quantity of 

With Both

·         all

·         enough

·         more/most

·         less/least

·         no/none

·         not any

·         some

·         any

·         a lot of

·         lots of

·         plenty of

With Countable Nouns

·         many

·         a few/few/very few **

·         a number (of)

·         several

·         a large number of

·         a great number of

·         a majority of

* NOTE

few, very few mean that there is not enough of something.
a few means that there is not a lot of something, but there is enough.

** NOTE

little, very little mean that there is not enough of something.
a little means that there is not a lot of something, but there is enough.

Classes of nouns

The head of a noun phrase

The head of a noun phrase either takes the form of a noun or a pronoun. The head determines such features of the noun phrase as number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine or neuter). In terms of meaning, the head determines what kind or type of entity the whole noun phrase refers to.

Thus, the following noun phrases have the same noun, car, as head and therefore refer to the same kind of entity, namely some kind of car. The exact reference of the full noun phrases differ because of the different determiners and modifiers that accompany the head.

(1) the blue car that Lisa bought

(2) the yellow car that is parked outside my office

(3) a French car with four-wheel steering

Nouns can be grouped into different classes based on their grammatical properties.

Proper nouns and common nouns

A first major distinction among nouns is that between proper nouns and common nouns. Simply put, proper nouns are nouns that functions as names of people, cities, countries, etc. Typical examples are: Bill, Stockholm, and Denmark. All other nouns are common nouns, e.g. car, water, and democracy.

The distinction is relevant to capitalisation. Thus, proper nouns always start with a capital letter.

• More on capitalisation

Countable and uncountable nouns

Common nouns may be divided into countable and uncountable nouns. As the terminology suggests, countable nouns can combine with numerals like one, two, three, etc., whereas uncountable nouns cannot. Moreover, uncountable nouns are always singular, whereas most countable nouns may be either singular or plural. A number of properties related to this basic difference distinguish the two classes of nouns. The following table lists the most important ones, and provides examples of both types of noun. (The asterisk * marks an example as ungrammatical.) 

Inherently plural nouns

Some nouns are such that they cannot be used in the singular, that is, they are always regarded as denoting something plural, and they always take plural agreement. Important members of this category appear in the following examples:

(4) My new jeans are Italian.

(5) We have to buy Peter new pyjamas, since his old ones are worn out.

(6) In this experiment, headphones are to be used.

(7) The ship's doctor made use of tweezers to remove the foreign object.

(8) The minutes were kept by Sheila.

(9) The goods have been exported to Germany.

(10) All our valuables have been stolen.

(11) The police are investigating the case.

(12) There were hundreds of police present in Stockholm in connection with the royal wedding.

(13) Do you know how many people are here?

(14) The cattle were seen grazing in the field.

(15) We do not want vermin in our house, but they are here anyway.

• A Swedish perspective: Inherent plurals (click to expand)

Nouns in -ics

Nouns that end in -ics look plural, but are actually most often treated as singular. Thus, when heading a noun phrase which functions as the subject, they trigger singular agreement on the verb.

(16) Statistics is becoming increasingly popular among our students.

(17) Mathematics is an integral part of our culture.

(18) Western economics has tended not to be influenced by theories from other parts of the world.

In the examples above, the nouns in -ics denote academic disciplines. However, some of these nouns may also be used to denote the practical application of the discipline, and are then treated as ordinary plurals, e.g. by taking plural determiners and by triggering plural agreement on the verb.

(19) These statistics show that our production of beef has almost doubled.

(20) The acoustics of the new concert hall are very lively.

Zero plurals

Zero plural nouns are nouns that look the same in the plural as they do in the singular. A well-known example is the noun sheep. Since sheep is a zero plural noun, it looks the same in the two sentences below. However, this does not prevent it from being singular in the first sentence and plural in the second one, as indicated by the different verb forms, is and are:

(21) My sheep is black.

(22) My sheep are black.

Other nouns that belong to this category are aircraft, Chinese, deer, elk, headquarters, horsepower, hovercraft, means, offspring, Portuguese, salmon, series, species, trout, and Vietnamese. When in doubt, please consult a good dictionary.

Foreign plurals

There is a group of nouns whose members are commonly referred to as 'foreign plurals'. What the nouns in this group have in common is that both their singular and their plural forms have been borrowed from other languages, which means that the plural ending is not the regular English -s, but something else. 

Examples of such foreign plural nouns that are important to remember, especially when writing academic texts (since many of these words tend to be academic in nature), are analysis-analyses, basis-bases, criterion-criteria, diagnosis-diagnoses, hypothesis-hypotheses, parenthesis-parentheses, phenomenon-phenomena, stimulus-stimuli, and thesis-theses.  

What usually happens when a word is borrowed into English (or into some other language) is that it is changed in line with the morphology of the language into which it has been borrowed. Consequently, there are some foreign words in English that have both a foreign and an English plural form. Examples include appendix-appendixes/appendices, cactus-cactuses/cacti, focus-focuses/foci, and index-indexes/indices.  

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-quantifiers.php

http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-lesson-articles.php

http://awelu.srv.lu.se/grammar-and-words/selective-mini-grammar/noun-phrases/classes-of-nouns/